


NFWMB

by teddybear17



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, BAMF Harry Potter, F/M, Gen, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Sassy Harry Potter, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-23 10:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16617155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teddybear17/pseuds/teddybear17
Summary: Yes, it's a cliche, just roll with it.An explosion in the Time Room at the Department of Mysteries sends Auror Harry Potter back in time to--you guessed it--the night his parents were murdered. Follow Harry as, without the foil of his best friends' common sense, he careens from one reckless and ill-advised adventure to another.(I just wanted to write a sassy BAMF Harry, is that so wrong?)





	1. In the beginning...

**Author's Note:**

> Idk man, I started writing this in 2016, and recently picked it up again. I figure I have to ride the wave of inspiration as far as it will take me before I abandon this for another 2-6 years.
> 
> Edit: In this story Harry is a young adult a couple of years out of the Auror Academy, so that puts him, age-wise, in his early 20s. He and Ginny are not married and they have no children (he wouldn't be making the choices he is if he did). Also, this is my AU and in my AU we are not super Dumbledore friendly. I wouldn't say there is Dumbledore bashing, but Harry is definitely aware of his faults and will not be treating him as a confidant.

Memo to the Minister of Magic and the Heads of the Auror Office and Department of Magical Law Enforcement:

_All Unspeakables present at the time of explosion are accounted for. Two dead, three critically injured currently being cared for at St. Mungo’s, and the rest uninjured. However, there is still no sign of Auror Potter._

Signed,

Investigating Officers Susan Bones and Cormac McLaggen.

* * *

_Clack clack_ “Hey, Buddy!” _clack clack_ “Wake up! You can’t sleep here!" 

“Bwah...?” Harry Potter grunted intelligently as he cracked his eyes open and craned his neck to locate the source of the noise.

The man, who Harry groggily identified as a police officer, looked unimpressed, “You can’t sleep here. Get a move on.” The officer moved off to finish his rounds as Harry levered himself into a seated position.

“Wha...? Where…?” he observed his surroundings finding himself on a bench in what appeared to be a muggle park. Thoroughly confused he quickly checked himself over to ensure the presence of all body parts—arms, legs, ears, ok—and important items—wand, glasses, underwear, awesome—before removing his outer robes, revealing a sensible white button down shirt and black trousers. Attire much more suitable for fitting in in what appeared to be a muggle neighborhood.

He got up and started looking around for a clue as to his location. Passing a church he did a double take. Well, at least he knew where he was—Godric’s Hollow. As he stood looking dumbly up at the church—was it just him, or did it look just a little bit newer than the last time he’d seen it?

There was a newspaper crumpled on the ground by his feet. Picking it up, his eyes were drawn to the date- _October 31, 1981._

“Halloween 1981,” Harry whispered to himself, “but…” He had a brief but violent war within his head, pitting his personal desires against the continued existence of the world as he knew it. He promptly decided the world could screw itself. “What time is it?” he asked desperately, looking wildly about. A clock face on the bell tower of the church caught his eye and revealed it to be just after half-past 9.

Before the crumped newspaper could hit the ground, Harry was gone, sprinting down the street the way he knew lead to his parents’ house. He had no idea what he was going to do when he got there, but he was not going to let his parents die, not if there was anything he could do to stop it. He didn’t care if he messed up time or erased himself from existence, he was not going to let the little boy currently playing happily with his parents become an orphan in less than an hour.

Voldemort’s reign of terror ended today—he’d deal with everything else  _after_  he saved his family. Now if only he could figure out how, but between the numbness of his pounding feet and the burning of his overworked lungs his mind could not produce more than a frantic need to  _stop him_.

He slowed at the cross street and peered out from behind a large pine tree, spotting a tall, cloaked figure striding up the lane. The gate to the Potter’s front walk lie halfway between them. Harry debated with himself for a moment before casting a disillusionment charm upon himself, deciding stealth would be the better option. He quickly, though silently, strode down the street, vaulted over the Potter’s fence at the corner of the yard, and positioned himself in a defensive stance in front of the door just as Lord Voldemort wandlessly pushed open the gate.

From the corner of his eye, Harry could see James’ head of unkempt black hair through the lace curtains covering the picture window. Voldemort was two steps from him now; he could see the eerie red glow of his eyes and the vicious smirk twisting his mouth from beneath the black hood. His outstretched hand pushed his magic to wandlessly unlatch the door and open it a crack, causing it to emit a creak that caused the inhabitants of the house to freeze.

In the final moment before Voldemort would walk right into him, Harry punched the man square in the nose. The Dark Lord fell to the ground at the unexpected blow, but not before his wand arm shot out, sending a jet of green light straight for his invisible attacker.

But Harry had already dodged out of the way and into the house, slamming the door behind him, and leaning his body weight against it while he released the disillusionment.

James and Lily stared at him in horror for a moment, Lily clutching baby Harry to her chest.

“You need to go! NOW!” Harry yelled. “ _He’s_  here! GO!”

And just like that the trance was broken. With less than a backward glance James snatched his wand from the back of the couch, grabbed onto Lily, and with a crack they were gone. Harry sagged slightly with relief until the door behind him shuddered violently. Gripping his holly wand in a slightly sweating hand, he quickly re-latched the door, for all the good it would do, and took up a defensive position in the living room.

The front door was blasted off its hinges into the adjacent wall, and Voldemort, eyes blazing with fury, stepped through the now empty doorway. Upon seeing Harry standing in the living room his smirk returned.

“Well, well, well, James Potter. Prepare to die.” Another jet of green light shot from his wand. Harry sidestepped, while propelling a dislodged hinge from to the door at the back of Voldemort’s head. Tom threw up a shield at the last moment and the piece of twisted metal ricocheted and embedded itself into the frame of the picture window.

“Sorry, just missed him. Suppose you’ll have to settle for me,” Harry quipped with an overly bright grin, and promptly ducked behind an armchair as another volley of killing curses was directed at him. Voldemort’s smirk had turned into a snarl of rage.

“How dare you stand in my way,” Voldemort snarled, sending another barrage of curses at Harry.

“Well, you see,” Harry began with an air of nonchalance as he blocked and dodged every spell fired at him. “I just kind of woke up here, oh, not a half hour ago, and I saw this guy in this menacing black cloak headed right for this quaint family home, and I thought to myself, that looks like a right bit of excitement there, I’ll just pop over and see what all the dramatics are about. And so here I am. Must say, your eyes really are something, are they color contacts?”

With an inarticulate growl of rage Voldemort redoubled his efforts. “You should take this seriously  _boy_.” He conjured metal spikes that pelted towards Harry, and embedded themselves in the wall behind him, stabbing indignant paintings, shattering a mirror, and defacing a majestic old grandfather clock in the corner. 

Two or three of the spikes grazed Harry’s arms. With the exhaustion from his breakneck run earlier, and the lack of innocents in the immediate vicinity to protect, he felt his energy draining. He retaliated with a barrage of bone breaker hexes and blasting charms as he retreated through a small hallway into the kitchen and through the back door into a garden enclosed by pine trees.

As he backpedaled, Harry sent blasting charms at the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust that would give him precious moments of cover. He used that time to throw up quick anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards that would simultaneously prevent Voldemort from escaping by magical means and stop his Deatheaters from coming to his aid.

“Very clever,” Voldemort’s voice seemed to come from all directions through the haze. “But you do realize this means no one can come to save you?”

“Who needs help?” Harry shot back flippantly.

“You.” The voice whispered in his right ear. Resisting the urge to flinch and spin toward the voice, Harry ducked and rolled just in time as a green light sailed over his head, ruffling his hair as it passed. He scrambled to his feet, turning a slow 360, keeping his ears open for any sounds of movement.

Suddenly, the remaining dust in the air was pulled to the ground and Voldemort was revealed to be standing at the opposite end of the garden, directing his wand at Harry. At the same moment that Voldemort cast the killing curse, Harry cast the disarming hex.

The spells connected in midair and the Priori Incantatem burst into life between them. Unlike Voldemort, Harry knew exactly what was happening and used that foreknowledge to his advantage. As soon as the beads of light began sliding up and down the golden thread of light he forced them towards Voldemort, as he had done in his fourth year.

Sweat beading on his forehead and hands clenched on his violently shaking wand, slowly, inch by inch, the first bead was pushed into Voldemort’s wand. Harry waited as people began appearing as gray wispy ghosts from Voldemort’s wand. Some he only vaguely recognized from old photographs, and others he did not know at all.

They wandered about the two dueling wizards, whispering words of encouragement to Harry, and hissing at Voldemort. After six men and women had emerged from Voldemort’s wand Harry turned to the man closest him.

“I’m going to break the connection. When I do, I need you all to rush him and distract him for a moment.”

“You got it,” the man replied.

“Now!” Harry yelled, wrenching his wand away as he lurched to the right, breaking the connection.

The shades mobbed Voldemort, distracting him as Harry fired nearly simultaneous summoning and banishing charms at opposite sides of Voldemort’s head. With a nauseating crack Voldemort’s head was forced sharply to the side. The shades dissipated into nothing revealing Voldemort. He wavered on his feet for a second before falling bonelessly to the ground.

Panting heavily, Harry cautiously approached the body. The mouth and eyes were open in a faintly shocked expression. The neck was clearly broken—the spine jutting into the skin, creating a bulge that was quickly becoming bruised as blood leaked from the severed vessels.

Harry picked up the yew wand. He could feel the stain of all the dark magic this wand had cast. He broke it over his knee, and stomped on it a few times for good measure. Trudging back to the house, he allowed his body to fall onto the steps by the door. Wearily he removed the wards and slumped against the stair railing.

Not five minutes later, Harry heard the crack of about five people apparating within the house.

“Out here,” he called, still slumped against the stair rail.

A thunder of steps raced towards him. Albus Dumbledore was the first to emerge from the house, wand held defensively in front of him, gaze scanning the garden. Harry knew the moment he caught sight of Voldemort by his suddenly frozen stance and sharp intake of breath.

“He’s dead.”

Dumbledore jerked his head down to look at Harry. He stepped to the side to allow his companions to flow past him and ensure the garden was secure. Among their number were James Potter and Sirius Black.

“I thought I told you to get out of here,” Harry called, eyes fixed on James.

“I did. And now I’m back. It _is_ my house,” James called back. He and Sirius, along with the three other Order members were gathered around Voldemort’s body.

Sirius cautiously poked it with a toe. “Is he actually dead?” he asked, disbelieving.

“In a manner of speaking,” Harry muttered. Apparently not quietly enough though, for Albus’ twinkling blue eyes were fixed on him again with even greater intensity than before.

“Excuse me, my boy, but I don’t believe we’ve met. I am Albus Percival Wulfric Bri—”

“Yes, yes, I know who you are, don’t go through the whole list, we’ll be here all night.”

Harry heard James snort at his pronouncement.

“Indeed,” Dumbledore said, seeming slightly put out as he stroked his beard. “And you, my boy?”

In one graceful movement Harry got to his feet, standing tall before those present, as though daring them to challenge his following statement. “First of all, I’m not ‘ _your boy_ ,’” the glare he leveled at the man was truly impressive, and caused the twinkle in his eyes to dim. Harry took that as an accomplishment. “Second of all, I just defeated your Dark Lord for you, so, if you don’t mind, I’d like to go sleep for a month.”

Harry turned on his heel, presumably to re-enter the house, before hesitating a moment and turning back to face the assembled wizards. “Oh, also, you should go arrest Pettigrew, he’s a traitorous bastard. Sirius, you shouldn’t go overboard and get arrested. And someone should bring the Longbottoms to a safe house before a bunch of discontented Death Eaters decide to torture them for information. Got it? Good. See ya round.” He spun on the spot and disapparated with a crack.


	2. The morning after

**_The Dark Lord is DEAD!_ **

_Late on Saturday, October 31 st the Dark Lord appeared at the Potter residence in Godric’s Hollow, seemingly intent on murdering the young family. James, Lily, and one-year-old Harry Potter had been relaxing in their home after the Halloween celebrations last night. The Potters were unavailable to comment; however, our sources indicate that a mysterious young man barged into their home, seconds before You-Know-Who, and warned them, allowing them to escape._

_Apparently, this young man stayed and battled You-Know-Who until reinforcements arrived. Albus Dumbledore and several members of the Order of the Phoenix arrived on the scene minutes after the Potter family apparated into the middle of a meeting._

_It is unknown who dealt the mortal blow, but Albus Dumbledore has given testimony to the Minister of Magic and Department of Magical Law enforcement that confirms that You-Know-Who’s Reign of Terror is finally over!_

_An investigation is underway to root out the remaining Death Eaters, and the Ministry has requested that anyone with information contact the Auror Office._

_As for this mysterious young man, the Aurors who arrived on the scene minutes after Dumbledore testify that no such man was present. Who was he? Was he even real?_

Harry snorted into his coffee from his seat at a table in the Leaky Cauldron as he read through the front page of the Daily Prophet. All around him witches and wizards were celebrating the news they had all woken to not long ago. Though it was barely eight in the morning, bottles of fire whiskey were being chugged like there was no tomorrow.

In the back of Harry’s mind, he mused on the fact that he never had been able to imagine the extent of the celebrations that had taken place after Voldemort was defeated the first time. Though, after being hugged multiple times by witches and wizards who had been out and about in muggle London in their robes, he was getting the gist.

Despite his desire to do nothing but sleep after defeating Voldemort for the second time in his life, Harry had dragged himself across the UK to gather the horcruxes he could get his hands on while everyone was distracted. The ring had been easy enough to obtain, despite the compulsion to put it on his finger. The diadem had been trickier, but after magically pleading with the castle, and sneaking in through the tunnel that led from the Shrieking Shack, he had obtained that as well.

He burned those two with fiend fyre deep within the forbidden forest. Surprisingly, the resurrection stone was still intact after the fire burnt out and the fragment of Voldemort’s soul was gone. He pocketed the stone, but snuck back into the castle and left the mangled remains of the ring and diadem on Dumbledore’s desk.

After that he had engaged a room at the Leaky Cauldron late into the night. He had only gotten a few hours of sleep before he was awoken by the party forming on the ground floor. His search for breakfast and coffee brought him into the midst of the celebrations where he was easily able to pick up an abandoned copy of the Prophet.

Harry was not quite sure what he was going to do today. Go back to the Order and explain himself? _Definitely not_. Search for more horcruxes? _Maybe later…_ Stalk his parents and younger self? _Hmm, that seemed an enticing option. Creepy though._ Surreptitiously capture Death Eaters and deliver them to the Ministry, sneaking a look into the Malfoys' safe while he was there to get the diary? _Suppose that’s the responsible plan._

He still had enough gold in his emergency stash to last for a week or so of meals, but after that he was actually going to have to find himself a job considering he didn’t have access to his family’s (or his) vaults any longer.

Harry stood up into a stretch, and, waving to a frazzled Tom, disapparated.

He appeared about fifty feet from the gates of Malfoy Manor, and immediately dove behind a bush before he was spotted by the myriad Aurors clogging the property. Harry was glad he had stashed his Auror robes in his magically expanded pockets. He pulled them on over his button-up shirt and trousers and strolled confidently onto the property. Never before was he so happy that wizards had not seen fit to update their style choices for the last 500 years.

Lucius Malfoy was standing in the center of his sitting room, under the watchful guard of no less than six Aurors as the manor was searched. The man seemed to be paler than Harry ever remembered seeing him, and that was saying something. A smirk pulled at the corners of Harry’s mouth.

“Excuse me, gentlemen, I’ve orders to search the safe,” Harry addressed the men in the room.

“Good luck,” the oldest of the group addressed him sarcastically. “What do you think we’re all looking for?”

“Oh, but it’s in the floor in here.” His easy statement caused the eyes of all the occupants to laser onto him. Harry raised an eyebrow, “Why else has he refused to move from that spot? He’s standing on it.” He gestured to Lucius.

If looks could kill, Harry would have been a pile of ash on the floor. He smirked.

“If you don’t mind moving?” He raised an eyebrow and flicked his wand, causing the heavy rug covering the floor to roll back exposing the opening to the safe. Lucius was nearly rolled within the rug when he refused to move, however an Auror snatched him away at the last moment.

“Ah, it’s a blood ward. If you wouldn’t mind Mr. Malfoy?”

Lucius spat at him in response.

“I have no qualms about retrieving a sample from your son,” Harry said with a glare of his own. “Would you like to change your answer?”

The threat to his son barely seemed to move the man. “You wouldn’t dare touch my son, you filthy—”

“I think you’ll find, Mr. Malfoy, that I do dare. Would one of you go fetch him?” The oldest of the Aurors jerked his head at one of the younger men, who then trotted from the room.

He could see the oldest Auror eyeing him with squinted eyes, but could only hope that the man wouldn’t question him in front of Malfoy.

It was no more than a few moments before the Auror returned with Narcissa, who was clutching Draco to her chest. Upon seeing the rug rolled up, and Lucius looking stubborn in the corner, she held Draco even tighter.

“ _No_. Lucius, just open it!”

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do!” The man growled.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Malfoy, this won’t hurt little Draco at all.” Harry held out his hands for the boy. He didn’t _want_ to hurt Draco, but now that he’d made the threat he couldn’t back down.

But Narcissa did not hand him over. She turned her ire on her husband, “What are you proving with this nonsense! There’re going to get it open one way or another, just _open it_!”

But Lucius did not answer. He lifted his chin, breaking eye contact with her.

“Mrs. Malfoy, this will only take a second.” Harry held his hands out again, and Narcissa reluctantly deposited her son in his arms.

The boy had been surprisingly silent throughout the ordeal so far, but upon leaving his mother’s embrace he began to whimper. Harry sat on the floor and set the boy in his lap.

“Hey now, Draco, none of that. Who’s that, over there?” Harry asked, pointing at Lucius in an attempt to distract the boy.

“Dada…” Draco replied hesitantly.

“Yes, very good!” Harry praised him, and Draco smiled a little.

Harry readied his wand in one hand as he asked, pointing at Narcissa with the other, “And who’s that?”

With a light poke of his wand, Harry struck while Draco was craning his neck to look over his shoulder at his mother.

“Das Mama—ouch!” Draco turned back around to look at his now bleeding finger. Before the boy could start crying Harry wiped some of the blood onto his own hand and healed him. Draco looked at his newly healed hand with wet eyes. He then looked up at Harry, betrayal written all over his face.

“All done, Draco. Time to go back to Mama.” Harry stood and handed the sniffling boy back to his mother who promptly swept from the room.

Harry turned back to the safe and smeared the blood on his hand onto it. The door dissolved away revealing a ladder that led down to a room filled with floor to ceiling shelves.

“Well, come on then,” Harry addressed the Aurors in the room. He led the way down as three men cloaked in dark blue followed him. He could feel the dark magic permeating the room. “Yummy, I just love the taste of dark magic in the morning,” he muttered to himself, before looking around quickly to make sure none of the others had heard him.

Harry scanned the shelves, leaving the others in his wake, until he found the diary which he slipped into his back pocket while the others were distracted. Ducking behind an aisle of shelves, he dug his invisibility cloak from the depths of his pockets and vanished beneath it. He snuck past the others, out of the safe, past the suspicious Auror, and out of the manor.

As he strolled down the drive, Harry debated going down to the Chamber of Secrets and asking to basilisk to bite it for him, just for old time’s sake. With a _why the hell not_ shrug to himself he decided to do just that.

Sneaking back into Hogwarts during the day was a trickier prospect, but he decided to do it anyway. This time he used the tunnel in Honeydukes, paranoid that someone would see him still the thrashing of the whomping willow.

He emerged from the one-eyed-witch statue, under the cover of his cloak, into a deserted corridor. From the sounds emanating from the direction of the Great Hall, Harry assumed the downfall of Voldemort had sparked a school-wide celebration.

He made his way to the girl’s lavatory on the second floor, and opened the entrance to the chamber. On a whim he asked for stairs, and, to his surprise, they appeared.

“Well, that would have made that whole adventure a lot easier,” Harry grumbled. He descended the steps, but when he made it into the chamber he was faced with a problem.

“Oh. Great. How do I call the bloody thing?” As it turned out, his first tentative call of _“Hey, uh, Mr. Basilisk? Are you here?”_ was sufficient.

The mouth of the statue of Salazar opened, but Harry could hear the great snake’s grumbling before it even came into view.

_“Waking me up, the rude two-legged meat puppet. And the audacity, the_ audacity _to call me ‘Mister’.”_ The complaints continued as the snake’s head emerged, eyes thankfully closed, and it slumped onto the floor in front of Harry.

_“Oh, you smell different than the last one. Well, what do you want?”_

_“Uh, hi. I’m Harry. Harry Potter.”_ Harry felt he could be honest with the snake. Who would it tell anyway?

_“Hrm. I’m Delilah.”_

Harry struggled to contain his laugher.

_“Salazar named me,”_ the snake continued in a heavily annoyed tone.

Once he had regained control of himself, Harry replied, _“My apologies, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I must also apologize for mistaking your gender earlier, I knew nothing more than that a basilisk resided within this chamber.”_

_“Apology accepted. For now. You’re far more polite than the peon who last disturbed me.”_

_“Thank you, Delilah. Listen, I was hoping you could help me out. I have this horcrux, see, and I was hoping you wouldn’t mind destroying it for me?”_

_“Oh? That is certainly unusual. It’s not yours, is it?”_

_“Gods no! It was actually made by the last human who disturbed you, Tom Riddle.”_

_“The peon.”_

_“Yes…”_

_“In that case, give it here.”_ She opened her mouth, and Harry placed the diary between her teeth. Once he was clear, Delilah closed her jaws and there was an ungodly scream as ink poured from between her teeth. She wasted no time in spitting out the mangled journal that now held a strong resemblance to the one Harry had destroyed his second year.

_“Thanks, Delilah, you’ve been a great help. Is there anything you need before I go?”_

_“No. But, if you wouldn’t mind visiting every once in a while…I do get lonely.”_

_“Of course. Thanks again!”_ With that Harry turned and left the chamber. Donning his cloak, he left the lavatory and traveled the still deserted hallways until he reached the Headmaster’s office; letting himself in once again with the password he’d guessed earlier that morning (pumpkin pasties).

Upon hearing the voices arguing in the office he whipped off his cloak while still out of their line of sight. When he opened the door at the top of the steps the voices within abruptly silenced.

Plastering a smile on his face, Harry strolled into the office and was greeted with the disbelieving face of Severus Snape, which quickly morphed into sneering hatred.

“James Potter,” the man snarled.

“Nope,” he contradicted happily, popping the ‘p.’ “Careful, you only get three guesses,” Harry joked.

Snape’s expression briefly stepped on confused before returning to hatred. Before he could say anything else, however, Dumbledore cut in.

“So we meet again.” With his eyes twinkling madly and fingers steepled in front of him, Dumbledore resembled a spider who’d just trapped the fly in its web. Harry took a moment to ensure that his occlumency shields were at full strength.

“Perhaps now that you’re rested you’ll be willing to answer some questions.” It was not a suggestion. Harry took great pleasure in his next words.

“Wrong on both counts, I’m afraid,” Harry’s smile grew even brighter.

The corners of Dumbledore’s mouth pulled down as he rose slowly. He flicked his eyes to Snape, who got the message and took up position in front of the door.

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, my boy.”

Harry didn’t even spare Snape a glance. “I just came to drop this off,” Harry said as he pulled out the ink sodden book and proceeded to throw it on top of a stack of important looking papers on Dumbledore’s desk. “You can add it to the pile I left you earlier,” Harry called flippantly as he walked over to a window and perched himself on the sill.

“Why are you doing this? Destroying priceless artifacts, and _this_ , and then leaving them here like demented gifts?”

“Don’t tell me you _want_ Voldemort to return from the dead?”

Dumbledore and Snape paled slightly at his words.

“What are you talking about,” Snape spat.

“Well, these ‘priceless artifacts’ were the vessels Tom chose for his horcruxes.” Dumbledore paled even further and sunk back into his chair.

“Horcruxes. So he did…three of them?” The old man looked like he might faint.

“Yeah, and there’s two more out there. So if you’ll excuse me,” Harry allowed the sentence to trail off as the window behind him shattered and he threw himself backwards through it. He disillusioned himself in midair and added a cracking sound effect just for giggles. Once he had cast a cushioning charm and landed safely on the ground he looked up to see Dumbledore and Snape staring through the window in disbelief.

Snickering to himself, Harry walked off towards the whomping willow, pulling his invisibility cloak on before releasing the disillusionment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [AliciaMirza](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliciaMirza/pseuds/AliciaMirza) asked how Harry is still a parselmouth in the comments. My answer, that I had originally intended to add in the notes, ended up being an 800 word essay (oops). If you're interested in my thoughts on the matter, I've [added a companion piece](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16685032) with my explanation.
> 
> I had a lot of fun writing this, so keep the questions coming, and let me know if there are aspects of this AU you want me to explore!


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